Attempts at Honesty

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Your Father knows what you need, then why ask?

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This post is Number 26 in the Sermon on the Mount Series.

In reading through Matthew 6, this evening I read two verses which raised a question. They are these:

“. . . your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then in this way . . .” (Matthew 6:8b-9a)

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The question is, why should we pray if God already knows what we need? It is not like I am going to provide God with a missing piece of data without which he could not make a good choice.

Also, when we look at the way that Jesus interacted with humanity, his behavior does not reveal a God who is reluctant to meet the needs of those who are seeking him. So the assumption in verse 8b is that God knows what you need and is more than willing to provide it. Later in the same sermon Jesus tells us that we are not to worry because God will take care of his people.

Why then are we to ask?

I think that we are to ask because through prayer, God grants us the dignity of participating in bringing about God’s will for humanity. He chooses to work through our prayers, even though he could accomplish his purpose without them.

It is a little bit like asking a 4 year old to help you paint the house. The little tyke will be excited about working with Dad, but won’t really contribute much that will benefit the house. Allowing the 4 year old to “help” grants him a dignity that he would not otherwise have.

Because God wants to be in relationship with us, he chooses to let us “help” him get his business done. He enjoys the fact that we come to him to ask for what we need.

Sometimes we are mistaken in what we think we need. But God, being the perfect father, will use the process of praying to shape our desires. Even when we ask for things that are not right for us, God will patiently answer our prayer. If it is not right for us, he will answer in the negative, but it is the correct answer.

I am thankful that I am ecouraged to bring my requests to God. I can do so knowing that even if what I am asking is wrong, he will make it right.

I’ll close with the first verse of an old hymn:

What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!

A prayer for today

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Daniel PrayingI recently read Daniel 9 and it struck me that Daniel’s prayer for the Nation of Israel is a good prayer for any nation.

Here is his prayer as recorded in Daniel 9:4-19:

4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. 12 He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. 13 As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. 14 Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

16 “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. 17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

The people of Israel were a lot like us. They did not automatically do the right thing, nor were they very keen on obeying the word of God. They rebelled and reaped the consequences of their immoral behavior.

We can learn a lesson from Daniel’s prayer. Daniel earnestly interceded on behalf of his people and asked God to intervene and do something about it. God has provided the ultimate response by sending Jesus.

Jesus came to begin to repair the damage that has been done throughout the ages. We have been in rebellion since the declaration of war which took place in the Garden of Eden. Jesus has been correcting the damage done by our rebellion; he has done so, is doing so, and will do so by changing individual hearts.

In all my years of church attendance, I’ve not heard anyone offer a prayer like this for his church or his nation. But now would be a good time to start praying in this way.

In watching or reading the news, it is not hard to figure out that my country needs it, I assume that yours does also.

 

Why are you amazed?

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Amazed“Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” – Acts 3:12

I can read about miracles in the Bible and not be amazed. The flannel graph presentations of my youth have made the stories so familiar that too often I do not connect with how radical the events actually were. This healing should amaze me but its familiarity masks how marvelous it really is.

But how would I respond if I actually witnessed a miracle of this nature?

In Acts 3, Peter and John passed by a lame man who frequented the gate to the Temple. Rather than giving the man some money, they grabbed him by the hand and commanded him to get up and walk. Not only did he walk, the formerly lame man was jumping around and praising God for the miracle.

Yes, the people who saw this were amazed. Which is exactly how I would be under the same circumstances.

Peter then asks them the question quoted at the beginning of this post, “why are you amazed at this?” The people who witnessed the miracle were coming to the Temple, the place where the miracle working God of Israel’s history was to be worshiped. They should have come to that God with the expectation that he would intervene on behalf of his people.

The people had low expectations as to what God was willing to do on their behalf.

Perhaps I am speaking only for myself, but it seems that those of us who grew up in the church have low expectations as to what God is willing to do for us. Do I pray as if I expect the miracle to take place? Am I banging on the doors of Heaven in anticipation of my petition being heard and a response enacted?

The notion that God’s response to my prayers is in proportion to the faith in which I offer them is dangerous and goes against Biblical teaching. I am certainly not saying that my expectation of being answered is the currency that buys a correct response from God. God is not a vending machine that gives me what I want if I put in the right amount of money. The amount and quality of my faith has nothing to do with it. My expectation of an answered prayer is not something that I can muster up. I don’t need to exercise my “faith muscles.”

What I am saying is that my prayers are tepid because I am not allowing myself to connect with how awesome and powerful God really is.

I need to remind myself that God does want to work in history, this is the major lesson from the incarnation. God does want to bring healing (emotional and physical). God does want to draw people to himself. God does want to bring me through the difficulties of life with my faith intact. I should not be amazed when I see him doing the very things for which I pray.

Then when God acts, I should be grateful but not amazed.

Tune my heart . . .

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praying_handsI love many of the old hymns. The ones I most appreciate are those for which much thought was put into the lyrics. One of my favorite hymns is “Come Thou Fount.” Here are the lyrics:

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2 that I need to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. This transformation is what the author of Come Thou Fount has in mind. Phrases like “tune my heart,” “by thy help I’m come” and “bind my wandering heart” speak to the need for God to transform me.

This morning I attended a Men’s breakfast where the speaker talked about prayer. As he was speaking, I thought about this need for transformation and how this should be the first thing for which I pray. Perhaps this is why my favorite prayer recorded in Scripture is, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Now on to one of my pet peeves. I notice that in the last few years when “Come Thou Fount” is sung in churches the lyrics of the first verse have been changed. Instead of saying “Praise the mount” the lyrics have been changed to “Praise the name.” While this seems innocuous, I think it actually does violence to the meaning of the song. The mount to which the author refers is Mount Calvary, without which the transformation is not possible. If we take the cross out of the song, from where will the transformation come?

It is precisely because Jesus died and rose again that I can have hope to be other than I am. For what could I pray if there was no hope that my sin has been conquered? For what could I pray if Jesus did not rise and demonstrate that sin and death are vanquished? What hope have I without the Cross and the empty tomb?

But he did go to Mount Calvary and the tomb is empty, therefore I can be transformed.

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